ampage Tube Amps / Music Electronics	For current discussions, please visit Music Electronics Forum.

ampage archive

Vintage threads from the first ten years

Re: How bout NEW U.S tubes?

4/18/2000 3:59 PM
Steve Slick	Re: How bout NEW U.S tubes? I think the problem with making vtubes here is the environmental laws. Making tubes involves materials that are toxic and expensive to cleanup after. So you'd have to move a lot of tubes to make it cost competitive. A few year ago I managed a software group for a company called E-Systems, now bought, and renamed Raytheon. We developed, delivered and installed software and hardware for the Defense Mapping Agency that did Target Production for the military. That software was the software that picked that Chinese Embassy. So now you know how good a software engineer I am. Actually, the software worked. It was bad data. You know, dated data in, Chinese Embassy out. If I'd know about the EI factory, I'd rigged it to avoid that place! I think that the success of GT is that book, which regardless of what you think about Aspen (I agree) is still a pretty good book. If you can filter out all the sales crap for GT. Cheers, Steve Slick

4/18/2000 3:59 PM

Steve Slick

Re: How bout NEW U.S tubes?

I think the problem with making vtubes here is the environmental laws. Making tubes involves materials that are toxic and expensive to cleanup after. So you'd have to move a lot of tubes to make it cost competitive.

A few year ago I managed a software group for a company called E-Systems, now bought, and renamed Raytheon. We developed, delivered and installed software and hardware for the Defense Mapping Agency that did Target Production for the military. That software was the software that picked that Chinese Embassy.

So now you know how good a software engineer I am. Actually, the software worked. It was bad data. You know, dated data in, Chinese Embassy out. If I'd know about the EI factory, I'd rigged it to avoid that place!

I think that the success of GT is that book, which regardless of what you think about Aspen (I agree) is still a pretty good book. If you can filter out all the sales crap for GT.

Cheers,

Steve Slick

4/18/2000 4:25 PM
Rebel420	I am partial to the making of tubes here in the good ol' us... maybe because I grew up in the town of one of the 2 big factorys for sylvania (the other wone was about a half hour away)... another reason why my amps use NOS sylvania tubes whenever possible.... The reasons they shut down production was mainly the slow decline of tube usage.... but you ahve a point... if enough of the big guys would start whining to them, they do have the tooling, and rumour has it (unfortunately, my contacts that work at Sylvania have now retired), they still make a few runs now and again for military and govt. bids.... so if the big amp guys (or maybe enough of us on ampage start whining, the may start producing again. (Ironically, in the same town, Stackpole USED to make their carbon comp resistors and their bulletproof pots, and that has declined... about the only thing out of that town anymore that we may use would be Keystone Thermistors)

4/18/2000 4:25 PM

Rebel420

I am partial to the making of tubes here in the good ol' us... maybe because I grew up in the town of one of the 2 big factorys for sylvania (the other wone was about a half hour away)... another reason why my amps use NOS sylvania tubes whenever possible.... The reasons they shut down production was mainly the slow decline of tube usage.... but you ahve a point... if enough of the big guys would start whining to them, they do have the tooling, and rumour has it (unfortunately, my contacts that work at Sylvania have now retired), they still make a few runs now and again for military and govt. bids.... so if the big amp guys (or maybe enough of us on ampage

start whining, the may start producing again. (Ironically, in the same town, Stackpole USED to make their carbon comp resistors and their bulletproof pots, and that has declined... about the only thing out of that town anymore that we may use would be Keystone Thermistors)

4/18/2000 5:15 PM
SpeedRacer	Couple problems Carl.. as was mentioned, environmental issues are fairly serious in VT mfr. Some nasty chemicals to deal with. Next, the human factor. Labor in Eastern Europe is understandably far less $ per hour than here. Compound that with the fact that we have no trained experienced labor force that knows how to mfr tubes (with the notable exception of the WE guys doing the 300B AFAIK) + a lack of equipment, high start up costs, etc. We haven't really made tubes(lots of them) in almost 20 years, and then it was a trailing off. In the ex-bloc countries they never stopped using them and making them.. and tubes are laregly assembled by hand, typically by women using tweezers and using magnifying lenses. It's a lot different than making light bulbs. so, you have the skilled & experienced low cost labor you have the plants you have the more relaxed HazMat regs and all you have to do is get them better materials to build with and some better designs and away you go. Much much easier. P Political instability is why firms like AIG sell insurance.. Funnily enough, the US is making tubes again after they woke up one day and realized some of the above factors and were reminded that tube mfr is a strategic technology (still found in missles and jet fighters among other apps I think) obviously due in part to their EMP resistance. I read a few years back (in the Economist if it matters) that tubes had gone from near zero to a bit more than half of high end audio amps during the 1990's, and of course we've seen a huge boom in MI amps using them. Hopefully this will be enough demand to keep the factories running.

4/18/2000 5:15 PM

SpeedRacer

Couple problems Carl..
as was mentioned, environmental issues are fairly serious in VT mfr. Some nasty chemicals to deal with.
Next, the human factor. Labor in Eastern Europe is understandably far less $ per hour than here.
Compound that with the fact that we have no trained experienced labor force that knows *how* to mfr tubes (with the notable exception of the WE guys doing the 300B AFAIK) + a lack of equipment, high start up costs, etc. We haven't *really* made tubes(lots of them) in almost 20 years, and then it was a trailing off. In the ex-bloc countries they never stopped using them and making them.. and tubes are laregly assembled by hand, typically by women using tweezers and using magnifying lenses. It's a lot different than making light bulbs.
so,
you have the skilled & experienced low cost labor
you have the plants
you have the more relaxed HazMat regs
and all you have to do is get them better materials to build with and some better designs and away you go. Much much easier. P
Political instability is why firms like AIG sell insurance.. :-)

Funnily enough, the US is making tubes again after they woke up one day and realized some of the above factors and were reminded that tube mfr is a strategic technology (still found in missles and jet fighters among other apps I think) obviously due in part to their EMP resistance.

I read a few years back (in the Economist if it matters) that tubes had gone from near zero to a bit more than half of high end audio amps during the 1990's, and of course we've seen a huge boom in MI amps using them. Hopefully this will be enough demand to keep the factories running.

4/18/2000 7:27 PM

Rebel420

quote:
"as was mentioned, environmental issues are fairly serious in VT mfr. Some nasty chemicals to deal with."

Sylvania is doing a good bit of CRT manufacturing these days... and I dont see how VT's would be that much different or worse to mfr. So maybe there is hope

4/18/2000 10:29 PM
Mike Shaw	I thought I remember reading GT's website saying that they are opening up a tube manufacturing complex in California. Supposed to be operational this fall. Can anyone spread some light? Mike

4/19/2000 1:54 PM
Billyboy	I understand that Groove Tubes is setting up a tube manufacturing division at their new facility. I'm not sure if that means they will actually manufacture the tubes from scratch. Obviously, there are plenty of folks willing to pay outrageous prices for NOS, why not top quality new manufacture?

4/20/2000 9:39 PM
Dave James	Re: EI factory---gone 4 good, or no? Has there been any news about the Svetlana 12AX7 tube? I thought it was to have been released a couple months back. Later, DJ

Page 6 of 7